


My Brother is Forgiveness

by Felinafullstop



Category: The Old Guard (Comics)
Genre: Comfort, Forgiveness, M/M, Multi, Post comic books, Trauma striken Booker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29004993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felinafullstop/pseuds/Felinafullstop
Summary: After the events on Noriko's boat, Booker is shaken. Joe and Nicky are not beyond understanding how much.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	1. Sinking

**Author's Note:**

> “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”  
> ― Corrie Ten Boom

* * *

  
  


The safe house is like all the others, hidden well enough in plain sight. Joe leans on the sofa, sketching in his book. Nicky is asleep, head on his lap. He stops his pencil every so once and a while to look down. To adjust the blanket over his love and brush a stray hair out of his face. 

  
"Drawing again?" Nile is quiet, but her voice carries from the doorway to the kitchen. 

  
"Always." Joe smiles and sets the pencil into the book, and shuts it. "Do you need me?" He shifts as if to stand. 

  
"Nah, Andy's sleeping." She looks around as if attempting to find interest in peeling wallpaper on the wall. 

  
"And Booker?" Joe asks. 

  
Nile shakes her head and shrugs. "He's-" She doesn't finish.

  
"I'll take care of it." Joe twists to scoot out from under Nicky's sleeping form and manages to slide a pillow under his head. "I'll check on him." 

  
Nile turns away, back to the room she and Andy are sharing. Joe leans down and kisses Nicky's temple. "Back in a moment, my heart," he says. 

  
The room Booker is in has a king-size bed. He is sitting at the end of it with a book in his hand. The only light in the room comes from an amber side table lamp that glows dimly. "What are we reading tonight?" Joe asks with a smile sitting on the edge of the bed. "Adventure? Romance?" 

  
"A bit of both, I guess. It's called The Black tulip," Booker closes the book. He reaches up to rub his hands over his neck. The only scars he has are mental ones, and it's not surprising considering what happened to him. "Dumas." His voice is just a whisper. 

  
"In the original French?" Joe asks. 

  
"Always, if I can get it that way." He nods, "You two coming to bed?" A gesture to the empty bed. "I can stop this." A wiggle of the book. "Take the couch if you're done watching TV." 

  
"You need to rest," Joe says softly, gesturing to the bed. "Sleep, we will join you in here. There is plenty of room." It isn't as if they haven't all shared beds before. 

  
"I just, I'll be out of your hair in the morning." He murmurs almost too faintly for Joe to hear, but he does. "Won't have to put up with this anymore..." but anything more he was gonna say dies on his own tongue. He rubs his stubbly face with his hand and then sighs. 

  
"Seb." They rarely call Booker by his given name, but it does make Booker lookup at Joe. "After what happened, you're not going anywhere. Andy was right, there had to be a price, and you've more than paid it many times over with such torture." The pregnant pause is almost deafening. "Noriko was wrong to do that to you. None of this was your fault, not her capture, not her suffering." 

  
Booker looks down, "I-" he shakes his head, "It's never been like that- a gunshot, that's one thing, a bomb another but...to go through that for so many centuries...." 

  
Joe nods and finishes his statement, "The drowning is worse. That doesn't mean what she did to you was right." 

  
"I thought the hanging was bad." Booker looks up, fakes a smile, but drops it just as fast. 

  
Joe's arm snakes around the younger man. "It's alright." 

  
Booker can only lean into him, "I'm so sorry." 

  
"The time for apologies is over my friend," He nods "you are forgiven. Noriko isn't here. It's just you and Me. Nico, Nile, and Andy." 

  
"And Copley."

  
"Yeah," Joe sighs. "That asshole too, but he's not here, not right now." 

  
Footsteps make both men pull back from one another and lookup. Nicky shuffles into the room and smiles at Joe before he drops onto the bed on Booker's other side, hugging around him to Joe. "We're here." his Italian accent is thick and filled with exhaustion, but he holds firm, has to. "We are with you." 

  
It's an hour before Booker is asleep, head dropped onto Joe's shoulder. Nicky wrapped around his middle, his face against Booker's back. Joe wakes Nicky enough to get him to scoot back. The two move Booker to lay in the middle of the bed. Joe crawls in behind Booker, wrapping his arms around him. Nicky does the same on the opposite side. Effectively bookending their brother, who trembles in his sleep. 

  
Looking over in the darkness, Nicky smiles. "I love you, Joe." He yawns because he can't stop it. 

  
Joe squeezes his hand, "Sleep, my love." He nods. "We will speak more in the morning." 

  
Nicky didn't hear. His forehead is pressed against Booker's, and both are fast asleep. Joe reaches down, pulling the covers up and over the two sleeping men. He settles himself down against Booker's back and lets sleep take him too. That night, none of them dream. 

* * *

Please feel free to join me on my OLD GUARD discord server:  
[HERE](https://discord.gg/WJG98qCX)


	2. My feet will carry me

Joe steps out of the bathroom freshly showered and looks at the bed: empty. He smiles with the shake of his head and towels off his hair before finding his clothes in his duffle bag: jeans, a navy blue t-shirt, black boxer briefs, and a black hoodie. He dresses quickly and fishes around in Nicky's bag for a pair of socks. 

  
Joe should buy more socks; they go through them at a premium due to their work. He'll hear it from Nicky later that yet another pair has been stolen. Joe doesn't mind. He actually welcomes it. 

  
There is a smell. He turns his head. "No." he can't believe what he is smelling. What he thinks he is smelling. Nicky would never let Booker use the kitchen, not at this safe house. 

  
Joe dresses quickly, sliding on his shoes over by the door before walking out into the living area. "Nicky? Nicolo?" He finds Nicky with Booker in the kitchen. They haven't heard him calling, so he leans gently against the doorway's casing, watching them. 

  
"Yeah, you just wait for them to puff up like that." Booker points down as Nicky stands over what looks like a small pot with oil. He is frying something, something that smells like a beneigh. "Then you roll 'em over, cook 'em good on the other side then out." 

  
"and you powder them immediately?"

  
Booker nods, "yes, and serve them right away. They do not keep, frère." Booker turns, "Joe." as if he had just noticed him in the doorway. "Is the shower free?"

  
Joe smiles, "All yours." he looks at Nicky. "What are you making, Nicolo?"

  
"Beneighs." He says, but his focus is clearly on the dough in the fryer. 

  
"A french donut," Booker says with a smile. "Get some coffee." He says, passing Joe by. "I'll be back in a bit." 

  
"Don't use all the hot water!" Nicky says without looking back. Booker excuses himself with a small bow to Joe and leaves the two lovers alone. 

  
"You know he will." Joe pushes off the door casing to come over. "Which one is for me?" He asks, looking at the little donuts on the plate.

  
Nicky turns to him and kisses him deeply, "This one."

  
"Oh, I like this one." Joe touches his cheek but does grab a plate and a single Beneigh to place on his plate." he sets it at the table before he turns to get coffee. "Did you sleep well?"

  
"Surprisingly." Nicky nods, still fussing with his little mesh tool over the pot. "Last time I shared a bed with Booker, he kicked all night." 

  
Joe smiles, "That was New York City, right?"

  
"Yes," Nicky plates another donut and sprinkles it with powder. 

  
"Did you catch Booker trying to cook this morning?" Joe smiles, sitting down with his coffee. He grabs the small canister of sugar and then grabs a small dish of non-dairy creamer. 

  
"I did." Nicky turns, pointing the utensil at Joe. "I put a stop to it the moment it happened." He motions to the sink. "Look at this madness." dishes are piled up high. "My poor kitchen." 

  
"And?"

  
"Well, he had most of the dough made, so I had to finish it." Nicky slowly lowers another into the fryer and smiles, turning back to beam at Joe. "Because I didn't want my favorite kitchen burning down, but he assured me he would do the dishes afterward." 

  
"Is this your favorite kitchen, my heart?"

  
"One of them." Nicky nods. "The best one was..."

  
"Malta?" Joe waggles his eyebrows in Nicky's direction, though the younger man probably didn't see with his eyes back on the fryer.   
Nicky makes a face of remembering and then turns the donut over in the oil. "Yes, Malta." he beams. "We should go back."  
"We should." Joe agrees and takes a bite of the donut. His face looks priceless. "Those are remarkable." He admits quietly. "You need to get the recipe from Booker."   
"I intend to for my book." He says and turns around. The book Nicky speaks of is a small notebook full of recipes that Nicky has written down over their hundreds of years together. "It can go right in there with that soft candy from the Americas."  
"I think they called it divinity," Joe says with a smile. "And it was, divine if I could say."   
"It was-" Nicky puts the last donut out to cool and then turns off the flame on the stove. Wiping his hands on a rag, he turns. "What was that one place, that sweetened bread." He snaps his fingers.   
"Oh," Joe remembers. "That was a VERY long time ago." He shakes his head. "I do not remember where we were or what it was called."   
"Nor do I." Nicky crossed his arms. Eyes fixed on a spot on the floor where perhaps the answer might miraculously appear.   
"You're getting old," Andy said, walking in. "Get used to it."  
"Joe is clearly older, and his mind is addled," Nicky says as Nile walks in and laughs. "I am the young one here."   
"I am the young one here," Nile says in her own defense, "I thought you two were the same age," Nile says, going straight for coffee while Andy is stacking beneighs on a plate.   
"We were made immortal at the same instant." Nicky explains, "But Joe is three years older than I am."   
"Wiser too." Joe winked over and then looked back at his coffee.  
"How is Booker?" Andy asks, eyes flitting between them. 

  
"He's getting a shower, and we think he's gonna be alright," Joe says softly and takes a bite of his donut. "But if he has trouble- we're here."

  
Nicky nods, "He got some rest finally." He shrugs. "We just have to be mindful of his states." He motions to his head.

  
Nile shakes her head. "That's torture. What happened to him." 

  
"It is," Andy said dryly, not daring to look at her. "It is something that can happen, and as much as you prepare for it, you can't be ready for something like that." 

  
Nile looks at Joe, "What was the worst thing they did to you at Merrick?" 

  
Joe shrugs, "Merrick's lacking nurse took brain tissue."

  
"With a drill up our noses," Nicky says and sniffles, rubbing his nose. Clearly, that was an ordeal. Joe shudders. "That was not a feeling I ever wish to feel again." 

  
Nile's hand covers her nose as they settle into eating. "I'm going to check on Booker." Nicky finally says, standing. "He's been in there far too long." 

  
"He's using all the hot water, I'm sure," Andy says.

  
Nile goes to work on dishes while Joe and Andy sit together looking at each other. Silent communications. 'She's coming.' 

  
'I know.' 

  
'We aren't prepared.'

  
'We will be.'

  
Their mental talk is stalled when Nicky walks in holding a small scrap of paper. "He's gone." he sighs. "And the bastard stole one of my pairs of socks." Joe doesn't have the heart to tell him the truth about the socks. He takes the note in his hands and unfolds it. "french." While Nicky can read it, he instead passes it to Andy.

  
Andy reads it, "He's gone." 

  
"He said he was going to leave last night, get out of our Hair," Nicky says softly. 

  
"What do we do?" Nile turns around. 

  
"We keep going on. Remember he knows how to contact us. He's an adult." Andy says, setting the note down. "When he's ready to come back, he can." 

  
"He has our forgiveness, all of it?" Nicky looks around, and every head in the room bobs in a 'yes' answer. "Than we should find him. He just left. He can't have gone too far." 

  
"Cemetary?" Andy asks. 

  
"Probably the nearest Bar," Nile says. 

  
Joe looks up, meeting Nicky's eyes. "Good Catholic boy he was. He's probably at a church." 

  
Nicky nods, "an excellent start, with many places to look, I'll take the churches, Nile you work on the bars, Andy?"

  
"I'll wait here." Andy nods. "In case he comes back, remember Copley is supposed to be here in two hours."

  
"I will go with Nicky, he will look in the churches, and I will walk the cemeteries that are adjacent," I assure him. 

  
Nile frowns, "Why would he go there?"

  
"200 years, it's not that far ago." Nicky beams at her. "his wife is still buried in Paris, and his four boys." He smiles. "He'd want to see them."

  
Nile seems to understand, "Go on, all of you, and I'll clean up." Andy stands. "go on." 

  
Joe takes a quick final drink from his coffee and goes with Nicky. Nile follows them out the door before they part ways on the street. 

* * *

To be continued


End file.
